Comments Posted By Insight
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Well, the right seems to be about as fragmented as the left - moreso probably. At least the left seems to agree on some basic principles (or so it seems to me), while the right has, at least since the end of WWII, argued over just what constitutes conservative principles. We are, at least I am, waiting for another Bill Buckley to give us some coherence.
Re: Ann Coulter. Yes, she's light, but also bright, and I read her for her biting humor. She is often very funny.
Until about 4 years ago, I also thought Coulter very bright, very funny. Indeed, some of her liberal targets couldn't help laughing at some of her writing.
But those days are long gone. She has become a parody of herself and rather than being funny anymore, she is simply hateful. But that tack has brought her fame and fortune so she continues to ply her hatred in her books and columns.
ed.
Comment Posted By Insight On 1.12.2009 @ 11:37
'IQ OF A CELERY STALK?' WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT ONE?
Not sure it's a cult of personality thing. There's a HUGE difference between the left and right. The right, although many of them can be appealed to on populist terms, is generally about individual rights, individual responsibilities, and individual opportunity. The left is about collectivism, and appeals to envy and/or elitism, but in both cases the message is "we must control other people." So the appeal of Governor Palin has as much to do with the fundamental sense of individualism in the people that like her as it does her own personal appeal. And to be sure, there's much to like and admire about her. She's no dimwit (intellectually lazy or un-curious is a better description) and she accomplished quite a bit in AK. She appeals to the gut instinct of conservative people (rather than their intellect), and there's nothing wrong with that. Further, I wouldn't call even people with less than average intelligence "idiots", but rather unsophisicated. They fill valuable roles in society.
That's in contrast to Obama, who is singularly un-accomplished and considerably less intelligent than he's given credit for. His seemingly high intellect did draw in some voters , but there was very little about his philosophy of anti-individualism that was hidden during the campaign, and I suspect that that (the appeal to envy and elitism) was his main appeal to most of the people that voted for him.
To jump to another subject, the above is why I fear that conservatives will always lose in the end in any society. The percentage of highly productive people will always pale in comparison to the moderately- or un-productive, and as Mencken said, "It doesn't take a politician long to realize that every time he takes a dollar from one man and gives 50 cents to two men, he gains two votes for every one that he lost." Add in the envy of educated people with no marketable skills (English majors and the like) but who still feel like "they know better" and the productive are always vastly outnumbered in their defense of individualism.
Comment Posted By Insight On 22.11.2009 @ 13:33
Yeah, I miss Bill Buckley, too.
But you are losing sight of one important fact: by definition half the population has a less than average intelligence (in a sample size of 300 million, the average is the same as the mean). So at least one half, and probably closer to 3/4, of the population can't comprehend the arguments at a Buckley level. We should thank God that Sarah Palin is doing our work in with the 75% of the population that we can't or wouldn't care to reach. The alternative is to abdicate that job to some low-brow leftie.
Comment Posted By Insight On 22.11.2009 @ 12:13
